Fracking Limits for Virginia Forest Spark Debate on Water

By Mark Drajem -
Sep 6, 2013

A proposal to restrict natural gas
production in a Virginia national forest has become a flashpoint
in the debate over whether drilling endangers water -- in this
case water used by millions of people in the Washington region.

Managers of the water supply for the nation’s capital and
suburban Virginia are pushing the U.S. Forest Service to limit
hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the George Washington
National Forest, the largest national forest east of the
Mississippi and home to headwaters of the Potomac and James
rivers.

“We still don’t have the science to inform the decision,”
Jeanne Bailey, a spokeswoman for Fairfax Water, which serves 1.7
million customers in Virginia and has an intake on the Potomac,
said. Regulators should “wait on the research to make the
decision” to open the forest to drilling, she said.

The Forest Service, part of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, proposed drilling limits in 2011, and now is
reconsidering after gas companies said it was unwarranted and
would set a bad precedent. A decision is expected later this
year and if the service sticks to its initial proposal it would
be the first time horizontal drilling into underground shale
deposits had been banned in a national forest.

Fracking Surge

A surge in fracking in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio
and West Virginia has created a financial windfall for some
communities and pushed down natural gas prices. It also has
drawn complaints from homeowners who say their water has been
contaminated. Industry groups say evidence has failed to
establish that water contamination is tied to fracking.

Under the Forest Service proposal, fracking itself, in
which water, sand and chemicals are shot underground to free
trapped gas, would not be banned. Horizontal drilling would be,
though, effectively prohibiting the most effective way to
extract gas from the Marcellus shale that runs under part of the
forest.

Drillers could still use vertical wells, though they are
less effective with shale. Private owners of mineral rights in
the forest could still lease to drillers for horizontal drilling
and fracking.

The George Washington National Forest, a portion of which
is is West Virginia, is one of the most heavily visited
because it’s within a few hours drive of millions of
residents. The headwaters within it contribute to the drinking
water of at least 30 communities from Washington to Richmond,
Virginia, according to the Forest Service.

Army Corps

That drew support for the ban from the Washington Aqueduct,
a part of the Army Corps of Engineers which supplies water to
people in the capital and Arlington and Falls Church, Virginia.

Enough study “has been done and information has been
published to give us great cause of concern about the potential
for degradation of the quality of our raw water supply as well
as impact to the quantity of supply,” Thomas Jacobus, general
manager of the Washington Aqueduct, wrote in comments filed with
the Forest Service in support of the ban.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Park
Service also support a prohibition on horizontal drilling.

Drillers say it would set a bad precedent for development
in the Marcellus shale, the gas-rich formation that stretches
under Eastern states including parts of Virginia.

Prevent Development

“We saw it as an effort to prevent the development of the
shale resource,” Lee Fuller, vice president for government
relations at the Independent Petroleum Association of America,
said in an interview. “If you would adopt this premise as a
matter of policy across the country, it would take significant
opportunities” off the table, he said.

In many Western states, where the federal government is a
major landholder, gas and oil production is booming. The 92,000
wells on public lands account for about 13 percent of U.S.
natural-gas production and 5 percent of oil production.

“What we spent a lot of time on is to see if we could
establish some controls and still allow horizontal drilling,”
Ken Landgraf, the local planning staff officer for the forest
service, said in an interview, referring to the review of
comments in response to the ban proposal. The staff is looking
at restrictions on areas that would be open to drilling and
safety procedures that could be mandated, he said.

Public Comments

Neighboring communities and other federal officials have
joined in urging the forest service not ease off. Of the 53,000
comments submitted, 95 percent support a ban, according to the
Southern Environmental Law Center, which reviewed the public
files.

“The George Washington National Forest is not appropriate
for gas development, and all the impacts that come with that,”
Sarah Francisco, a lawyer for the Southern Environmental Law
Center, said in an interview. Given its proximity to Washington
and other metropolitan areas and its important fishing and
hiking opportunities, “it’s really a different situation than
other forests.”

The intensity of the fight over the George Washington
forest belies the limited potential for extracting gas. So far,
no companies have applied to explore. Landgraf said that while
half of forest’s land sits atop Marcellus shale, it’s on the
eastern edge and lacks the liquid-rich deposits favored by
producers at this time.

Even if the service eases the ban, only a small fraction of
the forest would see oil or gas development in the next 15
years, according to the 2011 draft. Still, technology is
changing so quickly that an area shunned by the industry today
could become attractive in five or 10 years, industry
representatives say.

“Don’t lock the door,” Mike Ward, executive director of
the Virginia Petroleum Council in Richmond, said he told the
forest service. “Leave some flexibility in there for the
future.”